For many years I wanted New Zealand to keep the Privy Council. I have an affection for the British Commonwealth. New Zealand is small: most of the judges on the bench were barristers, and are known — because, even if they are moved from where they practised — and they are — the country is but four million.
We have some excellent legal minds. But not all of them are judges, and the people we have on our supreme court were political appointees.
I have changed my mind, because the EU seems to think they can trump any British court. And if I mistrust the NZ judiciary, and have skepticism about the current state of the UK, I have naught but contempt for Brussels.
Paedophile Shabir Ahmed, 63, described by a judge as a “violent hypocritical bully”, has written to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) claiming his convictions for child sex offences were a conspiracy to “scapegoat” Muslims, his immigration tribunal heard.
Ahmed, serving 22 years in jail, was convicted in 2012 of being the ringleader of a group of Asian men who preyed on girls as young as 13 in Rochdale, plying them with drink and drugs before they were “passed around” for sex.
He appeared before the First Tier Immigration Tribunal, sitting at Manchester Crown Court, on Tuesday to appeal against the decision by Secretary of State Theresa May to strip him of his British citizenship, the first stage in the deportation process.”It’s become fashionable to blame everything on Muslims these days.”
Shabir AhmedThree judges will decide on Ahmed’s appeal, as well as on appeals by three other men who were part of the same gang and who also face deportation.
Ahmed, who sat in the dock flanked by prison officers, told the court: “She (Theresa May) says all her trouble is coming from Muslims, yet she’s the biggest trouble causer in the world.”
He said he was convicted by “eleven white jurors”, adding: “It’s become fashionable to blame everything on Muslims these days.”
The reason the US has a constitution is to limit parliament (Congress, for your Yanks). For in the Commonwealth, The King-in-Parliament is sovereign. It is the highest court of the land: it can unmake and redo any law or precedent. There is a tension between the King’s court and the Common Law and Parliament: Parliament has over-ridden human rights from Cromwell to the Official Secrets Act.
And the UK should be able to deport those convicted of a paedophilic sex ring. Even if they are Mormons. The Orcs should be expelled.
And to the Muslims I would add this: if you do not remove those who would murder and rape and oppress from among you and shelter behind the patience and what is left of the Christian virtues of the West, you will find the pagan beast that Christ tamed.
Now, that is the trade. That is the deal. That was the bargain made in prehistoric times between some primordial King John and his primordial barons at the primitive equivalent of Runnymede. The terms of this prehistoric Great Charter were simple enough that men without letters could remember them: protect our daughters, ye who are the strongest in the tribe, and in return we will bow and call you master, treat each other with civility and respect, will send our sons to die in your wars, and give you a tithe of the firstfruits of the hunt and of the fields, and show you such signs of honor as you demand.
In a monarchy, the sovereign is a man, and the sovereign power passes through his bloodline. In a democracy, the sovereignty is a mob, and the sovereign power passes by the whim of the majority. In a republic, the sovereignty are elected agents or representatives of the majority, but their office is hedged and fences with laws and principles even the sovereign, out of due respect for the law, dare not overstep. But the sovereign bargain is still the same.
Thomas Hobbes was a brilliant but cynical man. He thought the social contract was based on an agreement to protect the individual from violent death at the hands of others. John Rawls was a stupid but cynical man. He thought the social contract should be voted on from behind a veil of ignorance, where the outcomes of the contract should not be known, and that society should buy a pike in a poke, sight unseen. Myself, the men I know by and large would be willing to risk violent death at the hands of others in return for the chance to dish out some violent death. I assume most of my readers run with a better class of men than I do, but keep in mind I hang out with lawyers, newspapermen, and witches.
But the passion that inclines men to peace includes a due regard for his family’s wellbeing, and the obvious observation that a coordinated team, moves by esprit de corps and ably led, can overcome a larger but uncoordinated mob, and work their will on them.
Now, why do I say Christ, and not the King? I have just said that the King-in-parliament is sovereign. True. But he is accountable. Two precedents: both bloody.
- When Charles I (Saint? Perhaps. Martyr? Probably not. Fool? Undoubtably) of England did try to seek alliances against parliament and the people he was tried, found guilty, and died. For the law is sovereign: the precedent was that there are always limits to our power
- The Maori of New Zealand were tribal: each tribe had its chiefs and warriors and slaves. When the musket came, they cheerfully killed each other (and what the bullet did not take, the measles did). However, the missionaries also arrived, and they converted. That stopped the fighting, saved the people, and allowed them to move to all — cheif, warrior and slave — being free, and British Subjects. Without Christ, there would not have been a church, and without that fellowship, there would be no Treaty of Waitangi.
But, to my leftist reader, I say this. Remove the foundation of sovereignty: the shared faith, the covenant that the men armed will protect the borders and keep the reaver away, and you will lose any validity.
Say that the sovereignty is elsewhere because of treaty or agreement, and you will face rebellion.
And to the Muslim reader I say: cast out the Orc from among you, or you will find that the Hobbits of England indeed have Orc blood.